Scene 150 — "It Was Waiting"
Dawn arrived without warmth.
Mist rested between the mountains.
The village had become strangely quiet.
No warning horns.
No voices.
No children running through the paths.
Only the sound of shovels breaking through damp earth.
The elder sister stood beside the grave.
The younger sister stood opposite her.
The Traveler remained a few steps away.
His white hair moved gently in the morning wind.
Their brother's broken spear lay beside the grave.
Neither sister had spoken much since sunrise.
The final handful of earth fell.
Silence followed.
The elder sister lowered her head.
The younger sister closed her eyes.
The Traveler looked at the grave.
He remembered the moment the brother had stepped between him and the beast.
He remembered the spear.
The roar.
Then silence.
His gaze lowered.
"...He was brave."
The elder sister looked toward him.
She didn't answer immediately.
Then—
"Yes."
A faint sound came from the forest.
Scrape.
The Traveler's eyes shifted.
The sisters didn't notice.
Another sound.
Scrape.
Slow.
Heavy.
Something was moving through the mist.
The Traveler turned toward the trees.
Nothing.
Only pale trunks.
Fog.
Then—
something moved between them.
Low.
Too large.
The Traveler's posture changed.
The elder sister noticed.
"What is it?"
He didn't answer.
The mist shifted.
Eight legs appeared.
One after another.
Long.
Jointed.
Wrongly thin for something so enormous.
The creature emerged.
A spider.
But no spider should have been that large.
Its body was wider than a house.
Its legs stretched across the ground like crooked pillars.
Dark hair covered its enormous abdomen.
Several pale eyes reflected the morning light.
The younger sister froze.
"That's..."
Her voice disappeared.
The elder sister slowly stepped backward.
The creature stopped.
Its head lowered toward the grave.
The Traveler noticed something hanging beneath its body.
Bones.
Remnants of clothing.
Pieces of armor.
The remains of creatures it had consumed.
The elder sister whispered,
"It eats the dead."
The creature's legs shifted.
One scraped across the earth.
The sound made the younger sister recoil.
"But..."
The elder sister's face hardened.
"It doesn't only eat the dead."
The spider turned.
Its eyes settled on them.
The Traveler felt something change in the air.
A strange pressure touched his body.
His fingers stopped moving.
His shoulders became rigid.
The younger sister tried to step backward.
She couldn't.
Her foot remained planted.
Her eyes widened.
"Sister..."
The elder sister tried to move.
Nothing.
The Traveler understood immediately.
Something had caught them.
The spider had not moved.
Yet their bodies had.
Stopped.
Frozen.
Not by ice.
By something invisible.
The creature slowly raised one of its front legs.
The younger sister's breathing became shallow.
The Traveler looked toward the spider.
Its eyes remained fixed upon him.
The pressure increased.
His fingers trembled.
His arm refused to move.
For the first time since awakening—
his body would not obey him.
The spider began crawling forward.
One leg.
Then another.
Then another.
The grave remained between them.
The creature stepped over it.
The Traveler's eyes narrowed.
The spider was hunting them.
Not feeding.
Hunting.
And the most disturbing part was that it didn't need to chase.
It simply had to look.
The Traveler felt his muscles tightening further.
His breathing became difficult.
The elder sister's eyes moved toward him.
She couldn't speak.
Neither could the younger girl.
The creature came closer.
Its enormous shadow covered the grave.
Then—
one of its eyes shifted.
Toward the freshly buried earth.
The Traveler noticed.
The creature wasn't only interested in them.
It had smelled something beneath the ground.
Something dead.
Something newly buried.
The Traveler's gaze hardened.
The spider lowered itself.
Its front legs touched the grave.
The earth cracked.
The elder sister's eyes widened.
The creature was going to dig.
The Traveler tried to move.
Nothing.
His body remained frozen.
Then—
deep beneath his cloak—
the Anchor became warm.
Once.
The spider stopped.
All of its eyes turned toward him.
The invisible pressure suddenly became stronger.
And the Traveler realized something.
The creature wasn't merely freezing his body.
It was testing him.